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Catholics to abandon joint faith schools

THE future of joint faith school campuses in Scotland is in doubt amid threats by the Catholic church that it intends to pull out of a £150m flagship project.

Senior church officials have warned they will refuse to use seven primary school sites in Lanarkshire because they do not want Catholic pupils sharing facilities with non-Catholics.

They are calling for a halt to any further joint campus projects until the issue is resolved. The threat by the Catholic church is an embarrassing setback for Jack McConnell, the first minister, who has voiced his support for shared schools as a first step to tackling Scotland’s sectarian problem.

Tensions were raised last week when parents called an emergency meeting following a series of violent incidents at Dalkeith and St David’s RC high schools — Scotland’s only shared secondary campus.

In one incident, a 15-year-old boy was hospitalised after being set upon by a